Part 43 (2/2)

MADELINE: He's in prison now.

IRA: Well I can't help that. (after taking out another ear) This is the best corn I ever had. (he says it gloatingly to himself)

MADELINE: He got this letter out to me-written on this sc.r.a.p of paper. They don't give him paper. (peering) Written so fine I can hardly read it. He's in what they call 'the hold', father-a punishment cell. (with difficulty reading it) It's two and a half feet at one end, three feet at the other, and six feet long. He'd been there ten days when he wrote this. He gets two slices of bread a day; he gets water; that's all he gets. This because he balled the deputy warden out for chaining another prisoner up by the wrists.

IRA: Well, he'd better a-minded his own business. And you better mind yours. I've got no money to spend in the courts. (with excitement) I'll not mortgage this farm! It's been clear since the day my father's father got it from the government-and it stays clear-till I'm gone. It grows the best corn in the state-best corn in the Mississippi Valley. Not for anything-you hear me?-would I mortgage this farm my father handed down to me.

MADELINE: (hurt) Well, father, I'm not asking you to.

IRA: Then go and see your Uncle Felix. Make it up with him. He'll help you-if you say you're sorry.

MADELINE: I'll not go to Uncle Felix.

IRA: Who will you go to then? (pause) Who will help you then? (again he waits) You come before this United States Commissioner with no one behind you, he'll hold you for the grand jury. Judge Watkins told Felix there's not a doubt of it. You know what that means? It means you're on your way to a cell. Nice thing for a Morton, people who've had their own land since we got it from the Indians. What's the matter with your uncle? Ain't he always been good to you? I'd like to know what things would 'a' been for you without Felix and Isabel and all their friends. You want to think a little. You like good times too well to throw all that away.

MADELINE: I do like good times. So does Fred Jordan like good times. (smooths the wrinkled paper) I don't know anybody-unless it is myself-loves to be out, as he does. (she tries to look out, but cannot; sits very still, seeing what it is pain to see. Rises, goes to that corner closet, the same one from which SILAS MORTON took the deed to the hill. She gets a yard stick, looks in a box and finds a piece of chalk. On the floor she marks off FRED JORDAN'S cell. Slowly, at the end left unchalked, as for a door, she goes in. Her hand goes up as against a wall; looks at her other hand, sees it is out too far, brings it in, giving herself the width of the cell. Walks its length, halts, looks up.) And one window-too high up to see out.

(In the moment she stands there, she is in that cell; she is all the people who are in those cells. EMIL JOHNSON appears from outside; he is the young man brought up on a farm, a crudely Americanized Swede.)

MADELINE: (stepping out of the cell door, and around it) h.e.l.lo, Emil.

EMIL: How are you, Madeline? How do, Mr Morton. (IRA barely nods and does not turn. In an excited manner he begins gathering up the corn he has taken from the sack. EMIL turns back to MADELINE) Well, I'm just from the courthouse. Looks like you and I might take a ride together, Madeline. You come before the Commissioner at four.

IRA: What have you got to do with it?

MADELINE: Oh, Emil has a courthouse job now, father. He's part of the law.

IRA: Well, he's not going to take you to the law! Anybody else-not Emil Johnson!

MADELINE: (astonished-and gently, to make up for his rudeness) Why-father, why not Emil? Since I'm going, I think it's nice to go in with someone I know-with a neighbour like Emil.

IRA: If this is what he lived for! If this is why-

(He twists the ear of corn until some of the kernels drip off. MADELINE and EMIL look at one another in bewilderment.)

EMIL: It's too bad anybody has to take Madeline in. I should think your uncle could fix it up. (low) And with your father taking it like this-(to help IRA) That's fine corn, Mr Morton. My corn's getting better all the time, but I'd like to get some of this for seed.

IRA: (rising and turning on him) You get my corn? I raise this corn for you? (not to them-his mind now going where it is shut off from any other mind) If I could make the wind stand still! I want to turn the wind around.

MADELINE: (going to him) Why-father. I don't understand at all.

IRA: Don't understand. n.o.body understands. (a curse with a sob in it) G.o.d d.a.m.n the wind!

(Sits down, his back to them.)

EMIL: (after a silence) Well, I'll go. (but he continues to look at IRA, who is holding the sack of com shut, as if someone may take it) Too bad-(stopped by a sign from MADELINE, not to speak of it) Well, I was saying, I have go on to Beard's Crossing. I'll stop for you on my way back. (confidentially) Couldn't you telephone your uncle? He could do something. You don't know what you're going up against. You heard what the Hindus got, I suppose.

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